


Felled in the Night (By the Ones You Think You Love)

by MercySewerPyro



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Giving Slick a backstory, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23070868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercySewerPyro/pseuds/MercySewerPyro
Summary: Treason doesn't come out of nowhere, and a clone doesn't become a traitor on a whim.
Comments: 5
Kudos: 38





	Felled in the Night (By the Ones You Think You Love)

Slick didn’t talk much about his assignment before Torrent Company.

_“Are you questioning my orders, sergeant?”_

His siblings let it be. It wasn’t worth anything, to pry into a brother’s past, especially a trooper who had lost an entire squad and more. But the war went on. Slick was given a new squad, a new group to look after. Torrent was the best, and the best couldn’t wait for anyone.

Before, Slick had been known to take troopers under his wings that other commanding officers would have written off. Now, he accepted the assignments given to him - fractured squads, a trooper injured in one eye, the skittish and ‘defective’ - but something was different. Something was wrong. He was distant, but the war went on; a sergeant grieving was not important, not in the large scale of things.

He got things done, and that had always been enough.

Enough to look the other way when he always woke up with start, the tears already drying on his face. He never screamed, never cried out, and he had always dealt with it.

Until he didn’t.

_“Trooper CT-2362 is guilty of_ **_treason_** _.”_

* * *

It had been mere chance, that meeting with the Separatist assassin. Or maybe it hadn’t; it didn’t matter any more, anyway. He had been on patrol alone, trapped in thoughts that smelled of ozone and blood. Lost to another time and place, until she had announced herself with sabers drawn but a purr in her voice.

He knew she was force-sensitive. Wondered if that’s how she knew he was just the weakest link.

She offered him money at first, a name as a legend of the Separatist army. He’d turned her down with a humourless laugh, and told her she was going to have to try harder than that.

She offered him freedom, and he thought of the blaster so heavy in his hand. The desperate pleas that haunted his dreams at night. And the low, threatening hum of a lightsaber that wasn’t Ventress’.

He accepted.

* * *

_“He and his associates are to be executed by firing squad. Is that_ **_clear_** _?”_

Slick had always known what the price of this would be. He wasn’t stupid enough to trust a Seperatist’s word. Freedom wasn’t really in his grasp, though _Force_ , he wished it was.

His siblings would do whatever they were told, as always. They would fall into line like the toy soldiers they had been created to be.

As he had.

And they would hate him. He couldn’t fault them for that; better that they hate him and think of him, then he be another trooper swept under the rug. They would think of him for years to come, the word spread to every company, legion, and corps, of the trooper who had stood up and told them that they were _slaves_ , no better than the droids they fought. And that the Jedi were complicit in every damn way.

The smell of ozone closed in, and he closed his eyes. Another report done, sent off to the droid on the other end of the line. Another step closer to this unscripted end.

Soon.

_“Sergeant, that is an ORDER.”_

* * *

He could have been better at hiding his tracks. Could have set up Chopper better; his habits meant he would have been a perfect scapegoat, perfect to push to the noose. But even now, even with more blood on his hands, Slick wouldn’t have sacrificed one of his squad.

Besides. They were an audience, weren’t they? First-hand accounts of the traitor and what he had done.

The walls were closing in, now. It wasn’t the end, not yet. But soon.

The towers had been ambushed in turn, and there were so many siblings dead. This time, their perfect Jedi hadn’t been able to protect them. There was only one thing left to do.

Sergeant Slick put a hand over his chest, standing there waiting for the end, and murmured the names that still stalked his sleepless nights. Ignoring the smell of blood on boots, blood that wasn’t there.

Siren. Bug. Scout. Dee. Tali. Aleen.

Rin.

He could almost see it, the dark red slickness spattered across white, barely congealed. Always, always, it looked far too fresh.

There was a reason Slick had stripped his armour of blue after coming to Torrent.

_Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la. Not gone, merely marching far away._

It was time. Slick slowly breathed out, put his hand to his comm, and began to send the details of the Jedi’s plans to Ventress.

_A brother’s voice, desperate and pleading. “Slick,_ **_please_ ** _-”_

_For the Republic._

* * *

Rin had asked him, once, what he wanted to do once the war was over. Slick hadn’t been able to answer. It’d always been Rin, not him, looking to the future. Always chasing the horizon, the hope of the next dawn.

He wondered what Rin would have thought of him now.

The Captain and the Commander had given chase, just like he knew they would. They probably thought he meant to take them out, but no- All Slick had needed was them to see. The whole armoury, broken in an instant. The Jedi couldn’t help them now. The Jedi had brought them here to die, after all.

Fleeing back into the base… He could almost laugh at their reasoning, their guessing at his ‘plans’. He would have been _stupid,_ to think he could hide from those two. The truth was, Slick didn’t have a plan. Not to get out.

He knew where the path led now. Where it always had been going to lead. He just wasn’t going to go down without putting up enough of a fight to make them wonder why he’d tried at all.

Cody left the blaster on the table, a trap in clear sight. They must think him an idiot. Maybe he is one.

There was nothing left to do.

Slick took the bait.

“...Rin, I’ll be with you soon.”

* * *

_Slick pulled the trigger in the dark, cold air. Again. And again. And again. Until the smell of ozone and the dead began to choke him, and his arms dropped, useless. It was a miracle he hadn’t dropped the blaster with it._

_Seven troopers, an entire squad, dead at his feet._ His _entire squad. Traitors, all._

_For the Republic._

_For the Jedi._

_General Pong Krell only smiled, a thing unpleasant. “Good work, sergeant. Let this be an example to any who would foolishly challenge their Generals.”_

_Slick had to fight not to retch as he turned away to face his siblings. All the other troopers on display, stock still at attention, ready to be dismissed. Maybe they were afraid. Maybe they weren’t. Nothing but puppets, strings pulled taut. Toy soldiers: easy to break, easy to replace._

_Their free will was an illusion, now shattered in front of Slick’s eyes._

_No one came to his side that night. Morning came, and the Slick that emerged, sleepless and brimming with grief, was not the one who had obediently stepped into formation the day before._

_This Slick, the ghosts of his squad in every step, put in a transfer request before the rest of the camp had even stirred. And he knew, some way, somehow…_

_He would teach his brothers what he had learned._

_Even if it killed him._

* * *

CT-2363 ‘Slick’  
  


Convicted on three counts of treason.  
  


Executed by firing squad.

**Author's Note:**

>  _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la_ : Not gone, merely marching far away.
> 
> Because who else better to break a clone's trust in the Jedi than Krell himself?
> 
> Title comes from the song _Daniel in the Den_ by Bastille.


End file.
